Simon & Garfunkel album among 25 to be preserved WASHINGTON (AP) — Simon & Garfunkel ’s song “The Sound of Silence,” written amid the turmoil following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and Chubby Checker’s 1960s dance hit “The Twist” are among 25 recordings selected for preservation at the Library of Congress. These are just a few sounds of the 20th century being added to the National Recording Registry on Thursday for long-term preservation for their cultural, artistic and histori...

US pediatricians back gay marriage, cite research CHICAGO (AP) — The nation’s most influential pediatrician’s group says gays should be allowed to marry to help ensure the health and well-being of their children. The American Academy of Pediatrics’ new policy, published online Thursday, cites research showing that the parents’ sexual orientation has no effect on a child’s development. Kids fare just as well in gay or straight families when they are nurturing and financially and emotionally st...

Boeing worker mentors ’Barefoot Bandit’ in prison SEATAC, Wash. (AP) — Jonathan Standridge and Colton Harris-Moore made an odd couple as they sat together in the visiting room of a Washington state prison one day last spring. Standridge, 57, is a project manager at Boeing, one of the world’s most important aviation companies. Harris-Moore, 21, is the “Barefoot Bandit,” a world-famous airplane thief who is serving a seven-year sentence after a sensational run from the law in stolen boats, cars...

Obama health law anniversary finds two Americas WASHINGTON (AP) — Three years, two elections, and one Supreme Court decision after President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, its promise of health care for the uninsured may be delayed or undercut in much of the country because of entrenched opposition from many Republican state leaders. In half the states, mainly led by Democrats, officials are racing deadlines to connect uninsured residents to coverage now only months away. In o...

Chicago to close 54 schools to address $1B deficitCHICAGO (AP) — Tens of thousands of Chicago students, parents and teachers learned Thursday their schools were on a long-feared list of 54 the city plans to close in an effort to stabilize an educational system facing a huge budget shortfall. Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the closures are necessary because too many Chicago Public School buildings are half-empty, with 403,000 students in a system that has seats for more than 500,000. But opponents sa...

Police: Girl, 7, was asked to pepper spray workers UPPER DARBY, Pa. (AP) — Police said a Philadelphia-area woman returned to a dollar store where she’d been banned and pepper-sprayed employees who tried to escort her out before giving the can to her 7-year-old daughter and asking her to continue the fight. Upper Darby police said Delaina Garling, 27, went to the Family Dollar Store on Monday, a place she’d been banned from for alleged theft. When employees tried to escort her out, police said ...

Colorado Corrections Dept. chief shot, killed at home MONUMENT, Colo. (AP) — The fatal shooting of Colorado’s top prisons official when he answered the front door at his house highlights a troubling reality for the nation’s judges, prosecutors and other legal officials: At a time when attacks on them are rising, it’s difficult for them to remain secure, even when they are off duty. Investigators do not yet know why Tom Clements, 58, was shot around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday at his home just north of Colo...

Survey: Low-wage workers gloomy about future WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s lower-income workers have posted the biggest job gains since the deep 2007-09 recession — but few are bragging. As a workforce sector, those earning $35,000 or less annually are generally pessimistic about their finances and career prospects. Many see themselves as worse off now than during the recession, a two-part Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey of workers and employers shows. The s...

Fed says it will stick with aggressive stimulus WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve on Wednesday stood by its efforts to keep borrowing costs at record lows, saying it isn’t yet convinced that the U.S. economy’s growth can accelerate without significant help from the central bank. It wants to see sustained improvement. Fed officials reinforced their plan to keep short-term interest rates at rock-bottom levels at least until unemployment falls to 6.5 percent. An unemployment rate of 6.5 pe...

In Michigan, GOP governor finds a tax to like LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan’s venture capitalist-turned-governor, Rick Snyder, needed just five months in office to slash his state’s business taxes. Elected on the downside of the recession, he was among a crop of new Republican leaders eager to show they could boost their states’ ailing economies with lower taxes. But two years later, confronting one of the automobile-addicted state’s most visible problems — crumbling roads — Snyder has r...

Nixon mocked Democrats for Jerusalem position WASHINGTON (AP) — Last year, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney attacked the Democratic convention platform for its “shameful” decision to omit a reference to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. But in a sign of how U.S. politics have changed in 40 years, President Richard Nixon complained in 1972 of the Democrats’ “dishonest” platform language declaring the city Israel’s capital. Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, ...

Landmark gun bills signed in Colorado DENVER (AP) — The governor of Colorado signed bills Wednesday that put sweeping new restrictions on sales of firearms and ammunition in a state with a pioneer tradition of gun ownership and self-reliance. The bills thrust Colorado into the national spotlight as a potential test of how far the country might be willing to go with new gun restrictions after the horror of mass killings at an Aurora movie theater and a Connecticut elementary school...

Drones will require new privacy laws, Senate told WASHINGTON (AP) — Privacy laws urgently need to be updated to protect the public from information-gathering by the thousands of civilian drones expected to be flying in U.S. skies in the next decade or so, legal experts told a Senate panel Wednesday. A budding commercial drone industry is poised to put mostly small, unmanned aircraft to countless uses, from monitoring crops to acting as lookouts for police SWAT teams, but federal and state pri...

Marines killed in training were young, lives ahead CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) — They’re called “leathernecks” or “Devil Dogs,” but some of the Marines killed in a desert training accident this week were just a year or so out of high school, their boyish faces not yet weathered by life’s hardships Just 19, Pfc. Josh Martino of Dubois, Pa., had already spent nearly half his young life dreaming of becoming one of “the few, the proud.” He had joined in July and was hoping to marry his fiancee later t...

Freddie accuses big banks of rigging lending rate WASHINGTON (AP) — Freddie Mac has sued 15 big international banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup, accusing them of rigging a key interest rate and causing huge losses for the government-controlled mortgage giant. Freddie filed the lawsuit Thursday in federal court in Alexandria, Va. It names the banks that set the London interbank offered rate, known as LIBOR, which provides the basis for trillions of dollars in contr...

Sanford advances in SC race, Colbert’s sister wins CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Mark Sanford says he believes in “a God of second chances,” and now the former South Carolina governor has taken the first step toward reviving a political career that was derailed by an extramarital affair. Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of political satirist Stephen Colbert, always dreamed of a career in politics — and now she has a chance to realize that dream. As Sanford advanced Tuesday night to an April 2 GOP...

Senate vote: OK $85 billion cuts, avert shutdown WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate approved legislation Wednesday to lock in $85 billion in widely decried spending cuts aimed at restraining soaring federal deficits — and to avoid a government shutdown just a week away. President Barack Obama’s fellow Democrats rejected a call to reopen White House tours scrapped because of the tightened spending. Federal meat inspectors were spared furloughs, but more than 100 small and medium air traffic facilit...

Feds say Native Mob gang dented but work remains MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal prosecutors say they’ve weakened a violent American Indian gang known for terrorizing people in the Upper Midwest now that an alleged leader and two members have been convicted in one of the largest gang cases to come out of Indian Country. But investigators acknowledge their work isn’t done in Minnesota or other states where the Native Mob is active, noting that the gang has been around for a long time. “We have som...

Health officials: 1 in 50 school kids have autism NEW YORK (AP) — A government survey of parents says 1 in 50 U.S. schoolchildren has autism, surpassing another federal estimate for the disorder. Health officials say the new number doesn’t mean autism is occurring more often. But it does suggest that doctors are diagnosing autism more frequently, especially in children with milder problems. The earlier government estimate of 1 in 88 comes from a study that many consider more rigorous. It look...

Pennsylvania school asks students to cut back on body spray BETHLEHEM (AP) — A Pennsylvania high school wants its students to cut back on the body spray. Freedom High School in Bethlehem said one of its students was recently taken to a hospital after being exposed to Axe Body Spray. Now, officials are asking students to stop using it as a cologne or fragrance while attending the school. Unilever, which makes Axe, says it is looking into the report. The company says in a statement that the safety and we...